Question

Topic: Strategy

Repositioning Our Company

Posted by Anonymous on 3/8/2004 at 5:10 AM ET 250 Points
First, the bad news: after 5 years of business, a high-tech biotech company has come to the realisation that it has been outcompeted in its primary target market. It offered high quality analysis at a high price, whereas the presumptive customers were hung up on price and price alone.

Now the good news: the results of a recent market survey showed a remarkable fact: another, quite different set of customers have been buying our products, and are very happy with them, for both technical as well as emotional reasons: the results are highly reliable, and since they are applying the results to develop therapies for sick patients, this reliability is crucial.

This group is evangelical and has been selling to itself through a very strong word of mouth process. We believe that this is the true "beachhead" market for our company, and the implication is at least 2 years of repositioning of this company to this market.

My questions are: What are the key strategies when repositioning a company? What is important to efficiently secure this market? How can we best exploit the ongoing strong word of mouth process?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 3/8/2004 at 10:40 AM Accepted
    Start off with asking yourself what makes your firm so special? Why you? You have to set yourself apart. You have to find your niche.

    In other words, what does your firm do best? Usually pricing alone does not create effective branding or retention. Creating a solid brand is the best way to compete in any market, but you have to target the correct demographic. Much like Hugh said, I wouldn't call it repositioning, but rather "changing strategy" or demographic.

    Please let me assure you, I KNOW it can be done, but I think you need a detailed plan from a professional marketer. I'm afraid you will not get the proper do-it-yourself "crash-course" here in the forum. YOu are on theright track with your current observations. Think about it...who else falls into the category of your satisfied customers? Go get them!!

    Regardless of what you decide to do, I recommend you read this article by Michael Fischler, founder and principal consultant of Markitek (markitek.com):

    https://www.marketingprofs.com/2/fischler1.asp

    ...and check out https://brandchannel.com for alot of helpful advice as well.

    Another good tool to find information on marketing, branding and advertising:

    https://searchengineformarketers.com

    Good Luck! Remember...set yourself apart from the rest by something other than price. Find your Niche, Focus on it, target the proper demographic, and give it eveything you got! Word-of-mouth and clientele referrals will help you build your reputation. There is not a quick fix for this situation! Persistance and quality performance will eventually alter the perception of your potential clientele.

    If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to send me an email.

    Good Luck!

    - Jett Enterprises
  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 3/8/2004 at 8:46 PM Member
    Robert

    Sounds like the firm had mis-identified its target market, or at least mis-segmented the market.

    In my view, the (re) positioning task should take second place to establishing the real value-proposition to this newly-identified segment.

    What is their view of the value of your product/service, in their own language? How would they describe the problem they had, how your firm helped them solve it - and what would have happened if your solution was not there for them?

    When you can express that lucidly, it will be easy to reposition the firm to other similar customers within the segment.

    Good Luck

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